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So a big concern people seem to have regarding the Disney/FOX merger is the fact that Disney will become an even bigger company than it is already. And to be fair, I can see why. Disney has the largest market share of the major film studios, which can seem pretty intimidating. In addition, the concept of Corporate Consolidation has gotten pretty controversial for genuinely concerning reasons. I highly recommend John Oliver's video on the subject, which raises some genuinely interesting points about the leeway certain companies have over certain laws regarding mergers and buyouts.
But this also brings up something that I think has gone overlooked. In my opinion, the actual physical merger isn't as important. Personally, I don't really care about Disney gaining a monopoly because, as with any business, Disney is in the right to pursue success. What is important to me is whether or not Disney and FOX remain ethical. Companies can make unethical and selfish decisions and sometimes a merger is a means to that end, a notable example being when NBCUniversal was bought out by Comcast, basically making Comcast bigger and giving them more power over matters such as, more recently, net neutrality.
And yet, that may not always be the case. While the main motivation of the Disney/FOX merger is almost certainly to make them bigger, it is entirely possible for them to otherwise function morally. And so far, there have been plenty of good signs that Disney will do just that, from Disney expressing concern over EA's handling of Star Wars: Battlefront 2, to the fact that neither Fox News not the Murdochs will be joining Disney, to the way Disney handled a disaster regarding a child being killed at one of their parks, to Disney properly dealing with the L.A. Time's source-free slander against their company, etc., etc.
Disney has made some mistakes, such as certain demands it has over cinemas playing the new Star Wars films, but making mistakes is not unique to Disney and it's hard to say if/how the merger would actually effect that.
There's also the concern that FOX will make less movies under Disney, thus cutting jobs. But y'know, they could easily split their annual release schedule between theatrical releases and digital releases through Disney's new streaming app, seeing as Amazon and Netflix have shown that movies made exclusively through digital streaming can be successful.
So in the end, this merger could be either good or bad, but I don't think it's as black and white as some have made it out to be. And again, it's less about the actual merger as much as it is what Disney/FOX will actually do with it. But I remain cautiously optimistic.
Regardless of how you feel however, this will be one of the most important moments in the history of cinema if it happens. Never before have two of the six major studios merged like this, but with stuff like Sony loaning out Spider-Man to the MCU, most of the major studios working together on the Movies Anywhere app and all the cross-studio references in Ready Player One, there's more collaboration going on in Hollywood then ever before. I am genuinely curious and anxious to see how this affects the magical world we call movies, for both good and bad.
Submitted December 14, 2017 at 07:11AM by Bronyficent http://ift.tt/2CeJxQU